Looking at MoviesFourth Edition

Richard Barsam Dave Monahan

CHAPTER TWO

Principles of

Film Form

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Film Form

• Movies are highly organized, and deliberately assembled and sculpted by filmmakers.

• The synthesis of elemental systems – mise-en-scène, sound, narrative, editing, and others – constitutes a movie’s overall form.

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Elemental Systems• Mise-en-scène – The visual design elements of a movie• Sound – Dialogue, music, ambience, and effect tracks• Narrative – Story structured into acts that establish,

develop, and resolve character conflicts• Editing – The juxtaposition of individual shots to

create a sequence• Shots – The product of one uninterrupted run of the

camera• Sequences – A series of shots unified by theme or

purpose • Scenes – Complete units of plot action

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Form and Content

• Content – the subject of an artwork (what it is about)• Form – means by which the subject is expressed and

experienced (the how it is presented)• Works of art need both content and form• They are interrelated, interdependent, and interactive• In movies, form is cinematic language

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Form and Expectations

• The narrative form is a formal arrangement of events that make up the story in a film. Certain events produce likely actions or outcomes.

• Our expectations provoke us to ask predictive questions about the film’s outcome.

• Other film elements work with the formal elements to generate patterns.

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MacGuffin

• MacGuffin – an object, document, or secret within a story that is of vital importance to the characters, and thus motivates their actions and the conflict, but that turns out to be less significant to the overall narrative than we might at first expect

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Narrative Patterns

• We instinctively search for patterns and progressions in all art forms

• Patterns provide an element of structure• Our natural interpretation of parallel editing patterns is

that the two things are happening at the same time• Patterns ground us in the familiar and acquaint us with

the unfamiliar• Repeating narrative patterns emphasizes their content

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Nonnarrative Patterns

• Convey a character’s state of mind• Create relationships• Communicate narrative meaning • Shot patterns / Sound motifs / Repetition of a familiar

image

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Fundamentals of Film Form

• Movies depend on light• Movies provide an illusion of movement • Movies manipulate space and time in unique ways

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Fundamentals of Film Form: Light

• Light is the essential element in the creation and consumption of motion pictures

• Light – a source of illumination and a key formal element manipulated to create mood, reveal character, and convey meaning

• Lighting – crafted interplay between motion-picture light and shadow

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Light Qualities

• Focus attention on significant details• Enhance the texture, depth, emotions, and mood of a

shot• Provide patterns of meaning• Symbolically compliment or contradict the other

formal elements of a movie• Affect the way we think about a character

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Fundamentals of Film Form:Illusion of Movement

• Persistence of vision – the process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it (apparent motion)

• Phi phenomenon – the illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly

• Critical flicker fusion – occurs when a single light flickers on and off with such speed that the individual pulses of light fuse together to give the illusion of continuous light

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Fundamentals of Film Form: Manipulation of Space and Time

• Movies are a spatial and temporal art form• On the movie screen, space and time are relative to

each other, and we can’t separate them or perceive one without the other

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Theories of Space and Time

• Erwin Panofsky – “Dynamization of Space” / “Spacialization of Time”

• Co-expressibility – the viewer’s relationship with flexible onscreen space versus the fixed space of a staged performance

• Mediation – the process by which a formal element, whether human or technological, transfers something from one place to another

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Manipulating Time Through Editing

• The manipulation of time (as well as space) is a function of editing

• Parallel structure – by using crosscutting and parallel editing multiple actions appear to be occurring at the same instant

• Condensing time• Rearranging time by organizing story events in

nonchronological order• Expanding time by fragmenting the preceding moment

overlap editing, or the freeze-frame

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Realism and Antirealism

• Realism – a tendency to view or represent things as they really are

• Realistic films attempt to immerse us in a world that is convincingly depicted on its own terms

• Antirealism – an interest in or concern for the abstract, speculative, or fantastic

• Movies can be both realistic and antirealistic, especially in science fiction, action, and thrillers

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Verisimilitude

• A convincing appearance of truth• Convinces you that you are “really there” by being

internally consistent• Affected by time and cultures as audiences’

expectations of reality change

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Cinematic Language

• The accepted systems, methods, or conventions by which the movies communicate with the viewer

• Conventions are flexible (example: dissolves)• Viewers identify with the camera’s lens• Cinematic conventions and individual experiences

shape the “reality” depicted by films.

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Review

1. Which is the best description of the difference between content and form?

a. Content is the subject of an artwork, and form is the means through which that subject is expressed.

b. Content is the meaning of the movie, and form is what happens in the story.

c. Content refers to a movie’s look, and form refers to its genre.

d. Content refers to individual scenes or shots, and form refers to the movie as a whole.

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2. The manipulation of time and space is a function of what filmic element?

a. Processing

b. Fusing

c. Postproduction

d. Editing

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3. The analysis and shot breakdown in this chapter of the “ice-break” scene from D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920) reveals what formal pattern?

a. Repeated close-ups to emphasize Lillian Gish’s beauty

b. The technique of parallel editing

c. The contrasting of light and dark

d. Repeated long shots to establish setting

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4. The process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it is called:

a. Apparent motion

b. The phi phenomenon

c. Critical flicker fusion

d. Persistence of vision

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5. Between 1895 and 1905, what two directions were established for film?

a. Naturalism and melodrama

b. Tragedy and comedy

c. Realism and antirealism

d. Naturalism and fantasy

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6. “A convincing appearance of truth” best defines:

 

a. verisimilitude

b. naturalism

c. fantasy

d. suspension of disbelief

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7. The viewer’s perception of cinematic space is determined by:

a. lighting

b. the camera’s lens

c. acting

d. the number of shots within a scene or sequence